Under The Sea, Darling It's Better
by Manchester
Summary: Xander and Harmony are of two minds concerning the sentiments expressed in the movie ‘The Little Mermaid.’ No. 5 of Harmony’s Halloween Choices.
1. Chapter 1

Arthur Curry of Atlantis looked around in total bewilderment at the chaos around him. Just a second ago, he had been swimming several hundred feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, about eight miles from Gotham City. He spent a frantic few moments actually wondering if Batman had done this to him to make it clear the crimefighter's city was off limits, until the King of the Seven Seas realized the absurdity of his thoughts. Whatever else Wayne could be accused of (obsession, paranoia, an exaggerated liking for skin-tight leather), that man always used exactly the proper amount of force whenever possible.

Now eyeing his surroundings, Aquaman decided that if his sudden transportation to this place was the result of a maniac surface-dweller's penalty for trespassing, that action could only be described as overkill.

In his vicinity, numerous small costumed beings with hideous features chased screaming children also wearing various costumes, while adults ran from or fought monsters and otherworldly creatures, with some of these same grown-ups dressed as characters from movies, novels, and popular culture, all to the sound of shrieks, howls, alarms, and gunshots.

Dry-landers led the strangest lives.

Just as Arthur was reflecting on this, a sudden bellow behind him caused the superhero to quickly spin around, but not in time to keep a massive fist from smashing into him in a blow that hurled Aquaman's body across the entire street to land in the front yard of a small house. The amphibian had already recovered in mid-flight to turn his landing into a quick roll that brought him up on his feet, facing his attacker standing in the middle of the street.

*Looks like the Shaggy Man's older brother.*

The blond man acted right after that thought, sprinting forward directly at the ten-foot-tall mass of fur and muscle that glared at the little thing insanely running towards itself, as if that pipsqueak could actually hurt it. Overconfidence caused the monster to gnash its six-inch fangs jutting out of the corners of its mouth, crouch down, and hold open its arms to welcome his opponent to doom and death.

This gave Aquaman enough time to slam directly into his enemy's midsection, barely rocking it on its feet, grab as much of it in his embrace as he could, and just….lift.

The hairy monster's eyes opened wide in surprise as it was picked up off its feet by muscles that could propel the Lord of the Oceans at eye-blurring swimming swiftness through the furthest reaches of the world's seas. A body formed by nature to easily withstand the most crushing pressures of the deepest ocean trenches as a consequence had superhuman strength when out in the upper surface of the world that was by contrast a vacuum to the man who held up his hirsute foe at arm's length for an instant, before slamming it onto its back.

Shockwaves shattered the street asphalt away from the impact, and at the exact point where the body of the Halloween-changed partygoer smashed into the ground, a pothole caved in, big enough to consume an entire Volkswagen plus a couple of skateboarders for afters.

A few seconds later, Aquaman hopped backwards out of the crater, landing on the lip of the bowl-shaped hole in the street. He stood there casually dusting off his hands and observing his moaning opponent lying limply in the indentation, feebly moving its limbs, until the superhero was satisfied that his defeated foe was not seriously injured, and it clearly understood about making no further trouble and staying there like a good little monster.

About to further help in the anarchy around himself, Arthur began to stride away from the crater, until he abruptly froze, listening with alarm to distressing sounds coming from….there!

Madison knew she was going into shock due to the unexpected change from abruptly being deep in the ocean to now lying on dry land. While she could live comfortably in both water and air, the mermaid's lungs and gills needed several seconds to adapt to either. Whatever had happened in the last few moments to bring her here had occurred too quickly for her body to adjust. Instead, she desperately gasped for breath, trying to stop her inner spasms before they killed her.

Writhing on the ground, her arms and tail flailing as she threw her head back and forth, trying to get air inside her, the young girl's blonde hair whipped around in ever-weakening gyrations as dark spots appeared in her vision and she felt her heart beginning to stutter. Starting to black out, Madison despairingly thought the sensation of her body rising into the air was the beginning of her death.

Warm lips closed over her own, and the girl's eyes opened wide in shock as life-giving oxygen blew into her mouth and down her throat to her lungs, which ended their convulsions to begin working properly again. Madison was too shaken to pull back from the kiss, instead staring deep into the brown eyes of the man holding her in his arms while her lips pressed against his. It was this stranger who ended their touch first, lifting away his mouth to urgently speak to her, "We must get you to the sea, my lady!"

As the man turned and slightly dipped his legs, a disorientated Madison started to say, "Who---AAAHHHHH!" Her shriek continued all the way to the end of the block, throughout the flex of the man's legs that carried them both in a single enormous bound to land at that point with a faint crunch, as his boots cracked the concrete surface of the sidewalk, his footwear sinking in further as her rescuer thrust again with his legs to soar in another majestic leap further down the street.

At least the mermaid didn't scream that time, and the next, and the next, until she lost count. Instead, she just closed her eyes and hung on during the powerful leaping rhythms of his bounds, her mind desperately trying to regain her composure by focusing on the most trivial of details: how the man's scaled, golden-orange shirt she was clutching perfectly matched the color of her tail.


	2. Chapter 2

The day before Halloween:

Xander Harris shifted the package containing his Halloween costume to his left arm, using his other arm to push open the front door of Ethan's Costume Shop, and stopped short, still holding the door ajar, as the three other teenage boys who had just been about to come in also came to an abrupt halt.

"Hi, guys," said Xander with his normal friendly smile directed at the first two teenagers. His grin faded as he looked at the last of the trio, and the Slayer's friend gave that person a cool nod.

Warren Mears sneered back, and as he eyed the package Xander was holding, the second-smartest student at Sunnydale High derisively snorted, "Hey, Harris, got your kiddie costume ready for Halloween? What're you going as, Scrappy-Doo?"

*Great. Nobody in school can remember they live in a town where vampires and demons roam, but let just one student overhear us calling ourselves the Scooby Gang, and we're stuck with the name for life.*

A glint of battle came into Xander's eyes, as he struck back. "Yo, Mears, considering how that guy's character and appearance exactly fits yours, I thought you'd be getting ready for Halloween by practicing your 'nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!' and going wild with the hair clippers."

As Warren glared at Xander, Jonathan Levinson hastily spoke, "Actually, Xander, we did consider going as the Three Stooges, but after we heard about this place with its great costumes, we decided to dress up as our favorite Star Trek characters instead."

Xander's eyebrows rose in mild interest. "So, who're you gonna be?"

"Guess," smugly said Jonathan, holding up his right hand in a split-fingered Vulcan salute.

"Commander Spock, of course." Xander then looked at the youngest, shortest, and quietest of the trio. "How 'bout you, Andrew?"

"Captain, the engines, they cannae take it much longer!" barked Andrew Wells in a not-bad Scots accent.

"Gotcha. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott," nodded Xander, who glanced over at Warren, as that teenager impatiently listened to all this and now glowered at Xander's curious look.

Reluctantly, Warren muttered under his breath, "This is only because there's no other way for us to get into Tricia Wallace's Halloween party--"

A surprised Xander interrupted, "Hey, that's a top tier party! Not the really upper level like Queen C's, but pretty high-ranking. How'd you get an invite?"

"Her mom and mine were college buddies," Jonathan told Xander.

"Yeah," haughtily said Warren. "Some decent babes will be there, so that means I'm willing to dress up as my favorite Star Trek character--"

"Good for you, Warren!" beamed Xander. "I always knew you were just made to be a Horta!"

Warren Mears' face now actually turned purple at being compared to a ground-crawling, egg-laying alien creature best described as looking like a large pan pizza, extra cheese. His mood was not improved by his followers' sniggering at this. Warren's features worked, showing something of his true nature he usually concealed from the world, and making Jonathan and Andrew uneasily fall silent, with Xander now becoming still and watchful.

*Jesse said Warren always had the makings of a really first-class creep. I'm beginning to think you were right, bro.*

A rictus of a smile was sent towards Xander by Warren, along with a tight voice, "I was talking about Harcourt Fenton Mudd." Now, an actual trace of amusement appeared on his lips, as Warren saw Xander blink in surprise and look puzzled.

"What, you mean the guy in the episode, uh, called 'Mudd's Women?' Wasn't he a bad guy?"

Warren now gave Xander a superior look. "Harry Mudd took over an entire planet of women. Isn't that what any guy wants?"

Xander opened his mouth to object, only to close it again, feeling a little sheepish as he admitted Warren had a point. Still, the teen needed to be brought down a peg, so Xander snarked, "Well a world of women that was shown by just a couple, which was all that the show's budget could afford."

Warren only snorted at that, which made Jonathan and Andrew produce tentative laughter now that their leader seemed to be in a better mood. Glancing at the pair, Xander thought, *You guys really need to hook up with somebody else.* He reluctantly admitted to himself from personal experience that when you were in the losers' club, you took your friends where you could get them. *I just don't think this guy's safe to be around with anybody.*

Still looking at Jonathan and Andrew while thinking this, Xander blinked at how the duo's expressions suddenly became glazed as they stared past him. An instant later, Xander felt a sharp fingernail poking him in the back, and an imperious female voice commanded, "Make way, you swine! How dare anyone impede the path of Princess Buffy?"

Xander hastily stepped out of the doorway, holding the door open with his right hand, as he cringingly bowed, and kept his gaze fixed to the ground, sniveling, "I am not fit to be in thy presence, oh most radiant and fairest of women." Buffy swept past through the door out of the shop, not deigning to notice the meek attendant.

"The peasant grovels most impressively, my lady," intoned Duchess Willow following her ladyship while also leaving the shop. The redhead gave Xander the disdainful look usually sent towards the mangiest possible mutt attempting to badly perform its newest trick. "Shall he have two lumps of gruel in his bowl tonight, instead of just one?"

Standing on the sidewalk, her back to Xander, Princess Buffy daintily put a hand over her mouth while yawning in absolute boredom, and then languidly waved the same hand. "Oh, I suppose so. But lest that dimwit have ideas beyond his station, tomorrow he shall have twice the usual flogging."

At that, he finally lost it, letting go of his package for it to fall to the ground, while he dropped to his knees and began to beat his head against the sidewalk. Xander, son of Antonio the village idiot and Jessica, drainer of flagons, kept his gaze humbly down and howled, "Oh, I'm the most fortunate lice-infested, plague-bearing, dead-before-thirty commoner that ever lived!"

In the middle of this, a pair of feminine feet stepped forward to come to a halt directly under his face. Xander promptly lunged forward to wrap his entire body around the ankles of this person, and started bestowing numerous slobbering kisses upon the tops of her shoes.

"YEOW!"

A yelping Xander was yanked to his feet, uncurling from around the legs of his adoration and hastily standing up, helped along by the firm two-finger pinching grip at the top of his right ear.

The young woman's painful hold on his ear ended only when he was all standing straight, looking into the stern features of Harmony Kendall, who then swept her right hand down the side of Xander's face to grab his chin and hold him into position, as she declaimed, "You filthy cur! How dare you get the merest drop of saliva upon my footwear, which is a hundred -- nay, a thousand times the worth of your hovel! For that, you shall be punished by using your mouth to express the most proper apology!"

At the end of that threat, she pulled Xander's face right into hers for a passionate kiss.

Watching all this in fascination, Duchess Willow reeled back towards Princess Buffy's side, with the redhead holding up the back of her wrist in front of her eyes to shield herself from this horrid sight. As she stood by the blonde aristocrat, the head of Sunnydale High's computer club moaned, "Ah, my lady, I cannot bear this spectacle! I fear I shall swoon!"

The noblewoman of the highest rank, standing with her back to the pair trying to remove each other's tonsils with their tongues, sniffed and said, "It's about time. A proper female member of the upper classes should faint at least half-a-dozen times before the noon hour, and you haven't been doing your share." At that, she turned away from her audience, ignoring the trio of awed teenage boys all with open mouths, to look at what Duchess Harmony and Xander the Simple were doing.

Now it was the turn of Princess Buffy to imitate Duchess Willow's posture to bring up her arm, to hold the back of her wrist in front of her face to shield her gaze from the revolting scene. Just to be sure, the blonde standing by the redhead firmly squeezed her eyes shut while holding forth, "Duchess Harmony! Halt this at once! 'Tis the first sign of the end of days, when pigs fly, cats speak, and Alexander LaVelle Harris gets to kiss a pretty girl!"

A good ten seconds later, Buffy lowered her arm to cautiously peek over this limb at where Xander and Harmony were still going at it. The smaller blonde dropped her arm, straightened up from her mock-alarmed posture, and exasperatedly asked, "How come she always breaks character at this point? Hi, guys."

The latter greeting jerked the attention of Jonathan, Andrew, and Warren away from the pair still kissing. The three young men dazedly looked at where Buffy and Willow were smiling at them, with the trio hastily trying to appear cool.

Warren cleared his throat, "Uh, what was all that about?"

Buffy snickered, and said, "We were just playing off what I got for my costume here. I'm going on Halloween as a seventeenth-century noblewoman in a formal gown. Wils here, on the other hand, has no imagination--"

Willow indignantly interrupted Buffy, "I like my ghost costume! It's what I've always worn!"

Rolling her eyes, the blonde girl turned back to look at the three guys, and asked curiously, "Are you here for costumes, too? What're you going as?"

Jonathan managed to beat out Warren with his hasty answer, "We're gonna go as Star Trek people. I'm gonna be Spock, and Andrew's gonna be Scotty."

At that, a nervous Andrew risked a short, "Aye, lassie," directly at Willow, and he was rewarded with a friendly smile that made him blush brick-red.

Giving Jonathan and Andrew a glare for daring to talk without permission, Warren smoothed his face before looking at the two girls. "Yeah. Say, are you doing anything on Halloween--"

He was interrupted by Buffy shaking her head and grimacing. "We got volunteered--" (the last word was delivered sourly) "--by Snyder into escorting trick-or-treaters around town. We have to show up at school after class tomorrow or that little tyrant's going to bust us back to grade school."

For a few moments, all of the teenagers there were united in thinking dark thoughts about a certain bald principal. This ended when Buffy looked at Xander and Harmony still locked together and breaking the world record for going without oxygen. Now reaching the end of her patience, Buffy scolded, "Hey, you two, I know where I can get my hands on a crowbar, and I'm not afraid to use it! Will you knock it off, and come on?"

After a few more seconds of kissing, Xander and Harmony finally disengaged, with both looking contented, and after Xander picked up his package, they stepped forward to join the others. Buffy nodded to the three guys, "Maybe we'll see you on Halloween. We'll keep an eye out, okay?" Friendly nods and waves were given to the trio of young men as the Scooby Gang left.

Standing there in front of Ethan's Costume Shop for a few moments, the silence was broken among the three teenagers by Jonathan's awed, "Wow…."

"Yeah!" commented Andrew, breaking out of his usual shyness. "I heard he fought off a dozen muggers last month--"

"Oh, shut up about Harris!" snapped Warren. "He isn't that tough! He probably got hurt tripping over his own feet and made up something about it!"

Jonathan's eyebrows rose, and he felt bold enough to say, "He didn't make up Harmony Kendall. Felt her up, maybe--" breaking off to snicker over this with Andrew in a perfect Beavis/Butthead imitation.

Warren's face went totally flat, as pure jealousy crashed into his mind. *How come that jerk gets a total babe like her, and I can't get any girl to look at me?* A little more of Warren Mears' personality crumbled, and his voice was now truly dangerous, as he gritted, "Are we gonna do what we came here for, or not? Come ON!" That teen now bulled ahead to grab and yank open the door to the costume shop so hard it slammed against the front of the building with a crash, ignored by the fuming boy as he went inside.

Andrew and Jonathan looked at each other with alarm, and hesitantly followed, with the youngest member of the trio pulling the door closed after him.

* * *

The next night, Commander Spock looked around, arched an eyebrow, and commented, "Fascinating."


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, this was a new one on him.

Aquatic vampires.

Deep inside Aquaman's mind, Xander Harris watched (sensed? experienced? who cared?) in total fascination and fan-boy glee as an original member of the Justice League blurred through the ocean, swimming at full speed into a mob of desperate demons trying fruitlessly to lay a single claw on their enemy. Instead, as he slipped past their strikes, a flattened palm inside a green glove was thrust into vampire chests, effortlessly slicing through undead flesh to penetrate the still hearts and disrupt the magic that kept these demons in solid form.

For a instant, ashes floated in the water until they were dissipated by the force of Aquaman's body rushing past.

*Always thought it had to be only wooden stakes. But then, we never really had time to experiment.* commented Xander mentally to Arthur (they'd both readily decided to use their names to each other, considering they were sharing the same head).

*I'm a little busy at the moment, Xander,* came back from the King of the Seven Seas, as he grabbed two vampires by their necks at once, and squeezed hard enough to decapitate both of them, leaving his hands empty as more ashes appeared.

*Sorry, big guy. You keep doing what you're best at, and I'll just stay here like a proper Scooby Gang member. Just wish I had some popcorn.*

A mental chuckle was sent to Xander's mind from Aquaman, as he flipped over in the water and dove down towards several vampires that evidently had enough and were trying to swim away to escape. Like they had any chance of this, with an outraged ruler of Atlantis after them.

Xander watched in appreciation as several more vamps were turned into dust. *Well, maybe slush would be a better word, since they're in water….*

As he kept his thoughts to himself, per Arthur's request, Xander had to wonder why he or any of his Sunnydale friends had never considered the possibility that vampires might live, ah, exist underwater. After all, these demons didn't need to breathe, and if they went deep enough, they wouldn't be affected by sunlight. Their senses were good enough so that they could still see and smell in the darkness of the ocean depths.

Of course, there were drawbacks in an aquatic existence for vampires, with the main disadvantage for these monsters being the lack of their usual prey. Humans mostly never ventured into the seas in sufficient numbers to fully satisfy these fiends' hunger. Xander mentally frowned, as he realized that he'd never noticed that there wasn't any kind of scuba shop in Sunnydale, despite the town being next to the Pacific. Maybe anybody who'd tried setting up in the past a business like that had soon vanished, along with their customers, and even with Sunnydale Syndrome busily working away, people had noticed it was safer to stay out of the water.

Xander also remembered from a while back that his hometown paper had once run a story mentioning that researchers from USC Sunnydale were unable to explain why the waters and shorelines along Sunnydale had the lowest concentration of seals and sea lions in any non-urban California setting. The town didn't pipe or drain any industrial run-off into the ocean into such amounts that would drive off these aquatic mammals. The boy inside a superhero's mind winced at recalling a further, much shorter story about how the boat carrying the same researchers conducting further inquiries had been found bobbing in the ocean swell, totally deserted, the day after a nocturnal trip to check out the mysterious lack of what Xander now knew to be marine vampires' main food source.

Grimly watching as Aquaman further culled the numbers of these demons, Xander bitterly contemplated how nobody had noticed around the coast off Sunnydale a pattern for decades of small boats vanishing or being found without anyone on board. All the next day, of course, after sailing through the night. Not in great enough numbers so that anything could break through Sunnydale Syndrome to be called the Pacific's version of the Bermuda Triangle.

Still, sooner or later, sheer hunger would probably drive these vampires back onto land, and it was easy enough for these demons to travel through Sunnydale's sewer system that reached from the shoreline to anywhere in the entire town, without having to risk sunlight, while they waited for night to fall and they could come out to feed. And once their hunger was satisfied, the marine vampires could return to their water homes, knowing they had a supreme advantage over their fellow land vampires: the Slayer would never come after them.

Xander mentally sighed. For a Southern California girl, Buffy Summers wasn't all that interested in going to the beach.

Another blonde, on the other hand….

At that moment, Aquaman winced as a shrieking sound washed over him. Two quick chops destroyed the last pair of vampires next to him, as the remnants of the crowd of attacking demons now frantically broke away, swimming in all directions. Instead of pursuing them, Arthur anxiously looked at another area of the ocean a few hundred feet away.

There, a slim figure in flowing blonde hair and a golden tail that was vigorously flexing to gracefully propel herself through the water was swimming around at least ten vampires that had been herded into a globe. These undead monsters were hanging in the water, their limbs barely twitching as they floated in a daze. Only one or two of the demons even lifted their heads to weakly glare at Madison.

Looking back with a set expression, the mermaid came to a stop in front of the vampires, opened her mouth, and screamed. Waves of pure sound that on dry land could shatter television screens and that were much more powerful in water burst from her lips to cross the water nearly instantaneously to strike the vampires. These demons' fanged mouths opened wide in agony as their bones shattered and inner organs were liquefied. It wasn't enough to turn them into dust, but all of the vampires were incapacitated by Madison's voice that was both an echo-location tool and a weapon.

*Go, Harm!* cheered Xander in Aquaman's mind. Arthur was mildly surprised by his mental passenger's bloodthirstiness, but considering that neither could lie to the other and what Xander had told him about Jesse and others, there was good reason for the boy's hate. Still, there was no point in further prolonging the demons' agony, so Aquaman blurred in motion once again, to hurtle directly among the vampires and started to destroy them with savage blows.

A few moments later, Arthur drifted to float in front of Madison/Harmony, which he had dubbed the mermaid. He mentally scanned her mind again at Xander's worried request, despite how this invaded her privacy. If necessary, he would apologize later, but it was necessary that she be checked for mental problems, considering that she had no experience with telepathy and possession.

*Harmony is still quiescent, Xander. It's like REM sleep. Her personality is there and fine, but she isn't aware of anything in the real world. She feels like she's dreaming, and she's having an interesting time.*

Aquaman felt the personality in his mind give a relieved sigh, and then hesitantly ask, *You're still not gonna wake her up?*

*That'd just scare Madison. She doesn't really believe in Harmony, since she can't talk to or feel her the way I do you, and proving it by bringing your girlfriend awake isn't going to make either of them comfortable.*

*I….guess. Okay, what do we do now?"

Arthur glanced around. At the limits of his vision, he could see scattered vampires still swimming away as fast as they could, in enough directions that even with his speed, he couldn't catch them all. He brought back his gaze to look into the face of the beautiful girl (*watch it, buster!*) patiently waiting for him to speak to her.

"Madison, we can't stay here. It's possible that those vampires could come back in greater numbers so that they might actually win, though that's unlikely. No, a more pressing concern is what happens if we….return to our original lives. That would leave Xander and Harmony deep in the ocean, and they'd drown."

The mermaid frowned, and then shrugged. Despite everything that had happened, she still had a hard time believing she carried another person inside her head, regardless of now being in an entirely different body. "I suppose you're right, my lord. But….from what I remember, and what you and this….Xander? told me, his home is just as dangerous as is our world."

*Yeah, it sucks being a Sunnydaler. But I -- we -- have to go back! My friends could be in trouble!*

Arthur nodded, causing Madison to look inquiringly at him, until the man explained, "Xander is worried about his friends. He wants me to go back and look for them. Yes, I'll do that, Xander, but we have to find a safe place for Madison. Do you know any that's on the shoreline?"

*Hmm…. Lemme think. Why don't you guys head for land, in the meantime?*

*All right.* At that, Aquaman looked at the mermaid again. "We're going back to land. Xander's trying to come up with a place where you can stay."

Madison obediently nodded, and flexed her tail to start heading at a good pace towards the coastline. Arthur swam after, much more slowly than his top speed, and caught up while looking around for any danger that might be approaching. Occasionally, he glanced over to make sure he wasn't going faster than Madison. He couldn't help noticing how the mermaid's breasts strained against her top that was flattened to her body by the water rushing past during swimming.

*Knock it off.*

*Oh, relax, Xander, I'm a happily married man. AND my wife's a redhead, which shows my preferences.*

*Yeah, right, Mera. Um….I'd like to ask some questions about you. I'm not sure exactly what period you're from, though it has to be at least before the mid-eighties, considering your traditional look.*

*What look? This is always how I've been.*

*Oh, boy. I have to tell you about something called the Crisis on Infinite Earths….*

As Aquaman swam along, a look of dawning horror appeared on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

"WILL YOU HURRY UP!"

"Mr. Mudd, shouting at Chief Engineer Scott will not cause him to finish sooner," calmly said Commander Spock.

From where he had been yelling over his shoulder, the head of a young human snapped around to incredulously stare at the other person at his side. Another young man evenly looked back, his features serene, even if they were a bit greenish-tinted, a color that extended throughout all exposed skin, including the elegant pointed ears.

"You…you…" sputtered the formerly-bellowing teenager, momentarily at a loss for words directed at his companion where they were both standing braced against a metal door, holding it shut with straight arms and their flattened palms pushing against the surface of the door. The look of total disbelief given to the Vulcan by his partner passed over an adolescent's face that belonged to a perfect stranger, yet the sarcastic snarl that now came from the teenager's mouth was pure Harcourt Fenton Mudd: "Try telling that to what's on the other side of this!"

CRASH!

The back door to the shop the three citizens of the Federation had been chased into promptly shuddered, as Harry Mudd yelped and skipped back, shaking his stinging hands that had been pressed against the door until the unseen but extremely bellicose creature on the other side had smashed into it in an eager attempt to enter and devour the trio.

At least, that was one possible reason for the creature's actions, mentally noted the science officer. It was just as likely that being was desirous of mating with one or more of the three individuals in the building. As he braced his new body against the door, Spock decided not to inform the civilian next to him of his latest conclusion. It was already noisy enough in this place without having to listen to a human shouting various obscenities at the top of his lungs.

CRASH!

The door was shoved open a fraction, before Spock dug in his feet and pushed back, slamming the door closed and causing a frustrated howl to be expressed by whatever was on the other side of the entry. It was fortunate that his Vulcan strength had carried over onto his new shape, even though it wasn't the complete power Spock could have shown in his normal, full-grown body. At that thought, the Vulcan looked behind himself at where the young human that was now somehow inhabited by Mr. Scott busily worked away.

In the corridor of what Spock had been informed was a "hardware" store, the chief engineer of the Enterprise sat on the floor, surrounded by various objects grabbed from the shelves of the store as the boy frantically linked up several primitive vehicle batteries with electrical cables into a control box that was inlaid with spare circuitry taken from Spock's tricorder.

The Vulcan's attention was drawn back to the door he was holding shut, as it creaked and groaned. The science officer raised his estimate of the unknown creature's intelligence, as instead of continuing in an useless attempt to break through the door, their attacker leaned against it while using both its weight and strength to slowly push it open. Quick calculations were made regarding the possibility of this succeeding, and the answer was readily evident by Spock's boots beginning to skid backwards on the floor. Harry Mudd, his different face paling, also backed up as the door became ajar enough for a massive reddish-orange furred hand with clawed fingers to lunge through the gap.

Only Vulcan reflexes kept Spock alive at that moment, as he ducked, feeling the creature's hand sweep through the air just above his head in an unsuccessful grab. Scrabbling against the side of the door, the fingernails of the creature now scraped against the metal surface, peeling off slivers of steel with what even the science officer had to admit was a most unpleasant sound. For once, there was evident strain in his voice, as Spock called out, "Mr. Scott!"

"Working on it, laddie…." came a distracted mutter from behind the teenager with the pointed ears, who momentarily envied the human on his right backing up to flatten himself against the stocked shelves and beginning to gibber. Having to always be stoic could be most irksome, especially in situations like these.

With a pleased growl, the creature behind the door managed to slowly force it open a bit wider, allowing more of its arm to reach through for its taloned hand to start descending towards Spock's upraised face.

"NOW, SPOCK!"

Before Mr. Scott had even started the second word of his shout, the Vulcan had promptly relaxed his body. This caused the creature pushing against the door to be taken totally by surprise, and with now no resistance to all its strength, it shoved the door open in an instant, causing it to slam against the far wall and for the creature to fall through the doorway.

Spock had held onto the suddenly-opening door for a fraction of a second, allowing the impetus of the moving door to thrust his body through the air to sail to where Harry Mudd was cowering against the shelf. Naturally, the Vulcan landed on his feet, and in one smooth motion, a hand went out to grab Mudd by his arm to lift him off the ground and hurl him towards a specific location, while right after that, Spock dove away as far from the door as he could manage.

The panicked yelp by a mid-air Mudd was ignored by the Vulcan, who was confident that the human would have a reasonably soft landing in the pyramidal pile of full plastic sacks where he had been thrown into, as the son of Surak and Amanda hit the floor himself, to smoothly roll, twist, and spring to his feet, now facing the door.

Unfortunately, as Spock stood up, so did the creature just before the doorway that had now fully revealed itself. A rectangular body totally covered with red-orange fur that was at least three meters tall and whose arms reached up nearly another two meters for its razor-sharp fingernails to rip through the ceiling panels in its rage. This emotion was also vividly shown by the neckless head that was the top of this creature's body, bearing no signs of ears or a nose, but with glaring oval eyes and a wide, lipless mouth, from which came a ear-splitting bellow of fury. Stubby legs took a step forward towards its prey, slamming down against the floor hard enough to make the entire shop shiver, as the creature advanced in its….

A mental voice howled with total incredulity inside Spock's mind.

*TENNIS SHOES?!*

The Vulcan had no time to react to this, as Mr. Scott finally decided it was time to fire his weapon. A silent prayer in his mind, the Scotsman's finger jabbed on the switch, and a blue wave of energy erupted from the jury-rigged stunner he'd just thrown together. Faster than the eye could blink, the energy blurred across the shop to hit the creature directly in its chest. For a few moments, the monster just stood there, as blue electrical discharges crackled across its entire form, and then as the energy faded away, its eyes rolled back upwards in its head, and the now-unconscious creature slowly and gracefully toppled forward, landing with a massive thud onto its front, causing objects throughout the shop to fall over and off the shelves with a concluding clatter.

A shuddering sigh of relief came from the boy seated on the floor. Spock was almost tempted to join in. Almost. Instead, he sent a curious inquiry to the personality now sharing his mind. *What did you mean about that creature's foot--*

This mental question was interrupted by the sudden sounds coming from Spock's right side. Turning to look, the Vulcan lifted an eyebrow at the brown dustcloud that now floated in mid-air and hid the entire spot where he'd thrown Harry Mudd into the pile of plastic sacks. This cloud also concealed whatever was now making the soft thuds and ripping sounds, as presumably sacks slid off the pile and tore, exposing their contents and contributing to the haze. Further obscured was the man himself, though the muffled yelps, swearing, hacking, and coughing revealed that Mudd was still in the middle of this minor disaster and even if that person was uninjured, he was certainly not having a good time.

"Spock, what happened?" came from the young boy who'd gotten up from the floor and stepped over to stand by the Vulcan's side. As the science officer looked down into the fresh features of the adolescent that in no way resembled the human he'd known for years, the only comfort for the alien came from the familiar Scots accent that managed to rumble from the mouth of….*Andrew.*

Thanking the other personality in his mind for this information, Spock nodded at the dust cloud and spoke, "I believe Mr. Mudd's landing damaged his cushions, and released whatever filled the sacks. Hopefully, since as you explained that this is a place of business with various customers seeking tools and implements, whatever was in those containers is not toxic."

"Pity, that," growled Mr. Scott, shooting a dirty look at the equally-grimy cloud still hanging inside the shop. "Of all the people in the Federation, why did it have to be Harry Mudd we're stuck with here?"

Deep inside his mind, Spock allowed a flicker of agreement to arise. While not an actual enemy, the confidence man known as Harcourt Fenton Mudd was extremely irritating to any law-abiding member of the Federation. He was also one of the few people who could make Jim actually angry, as that person's cheerful amorality managed to truly offend the Vulcan's friend.

*Wow. You really call him Jim, just like in the books--- Sorry! Sorry!* The other personality sheepishly withdrew himself from Spock's cool mental reproving for invading his privacy. The Vulcan's attention suddenly switched back to the dustcloud.

A gasping Harry Mudd now staggered out of the haze, totally covered in some kind of coarse dark brown powder that fell from his body in a steady dribble at every step, as the human desperately clawed at his face to get it all off. The utterly miserable young man had weeping slits for eyes, and he alternated from hacking to spitting, as frantic attempts were made to remove whatever material had gotten into his mouth. Startled by Mudd's appearance, the other two officers of the Enterprise could only stare at him, as he lurched past them. Then, Spock and Scotty simultaneously performed an identical reaction.

They both wrinkled their noses at the extremely odiferous pungency now coming from Harry Mudd.

Spock's eye was caught by something in the clump of brown residue that had fallen off Mudd's shoulder as he'd reeled down the corridor, leaving a trail of muck behind him. Kneeling down, the Vulcan gingerly pulled out from the mound a piece of plastic that had once been a sack containing whatever material that now coated every inch of the human's skin. As he stood up again, Spock examined the fraction of lettering that was on the plastic, and his eyebrow rose, as he read, "GardenGro! Fertili--"

"GOSSAMER! SOMEBODY ACTUALLY DRESSED UP AS A CARTOON VERSION OF GOSSAMER!" was screamed behind the Federation officers, as they both spun around in surprise, to see where a manure-covered Harry Mudd had stopped in front of the now-snoring creature still lying peacefully on its stomach, to disbelievingly stare at this being after screeching his statement at the top of his lungs.

Spock allowed a faint frown on his face, as he sent a query to the other in his mind, only to receive a mental shrug, and the message of, *Beats me. I'm an anime fan. It's Warren who likes the classic Warner Brothers cartoons.*

Fifteen minutes later, a fuming Harry/Warren came out of the hardware store restroom, throwing to the floor the wad of paper towels he'd used in an only partially-successful attempt to clean himself up. The young man's mood wasn't improved by the faint grittiness still inside his mouth between his teeth. As he walked towards the other pair of individuals busy at their work at the main corridor of the hardware shop, the teenager's face darkened as he noticed when he got nearer, both of these persons fractionally leaned away from him.

The angry man's attention was distracted by what Scotty/Andrew was doing, once again seated on the floor and busy tinkering with another one of the primitive phasers he'd just created. Frowning, Harry/Warren grumped, "What are you doing? Isn't your little gun working?"

Without looking up from his tricorder, Spock/Jonathan calmly answered for the chief engineer. "We need more than one means of defense when we leave this place."

"What! What're you talking about?" demanded Harry, shooting a nervous glance at the empty space in the corridor where the creature had been, until Spock had dragged the unconscious being out of the shop, into the alley and shoved it inside a large metal trash container that would hopefully contain the sleeping monster in safety. To be precise, their and its wellbeing. Harry indignantly continued, "I thought we were going to stay here, where it's safe!"

"I have come across some most intriguing information," replied Spock, eyeing his tricorder and then looking directly at Harry. "Apparently there is in this city some sort of dimensional nexus, which may have something to do with how we appeared here and inside the bodies of three residents of this community. Most importantly, a second source of extremely peculiar energy is located inside another place fairly close. It was no problem for me to enter the primitive computer systems of this time period and find out what this place is: a recently opened costume shop known as Ethan's."

Harry's jaw dropped in sheer astonishment. He blurted, "That's where those idiot boys got those costumes that brought us here!"

"Indeed. Which in turn may provide an opportunity for us to return to our proper time and bodies. We must investigate this, so we will have to once again venture outside. Only this time, we will bring with us some protection," finished Spock, nodding at where three of Mr. Scott's jury-rigged weapons now rested on the floor.

Harry Mudd could count as well as anyone, as he glowered at the makeshift phasers that were clearly intended for every one of the people in the shop. Firmly shaking his head, he declared, "There's no 'we', me bucko. You're the big heroes. YOU both can investigate and solve the problem. I'll stay here, safe and sound, and think about how to finish separating the suck--. That is, completing the business transaction I was in the middle of when I got shanghaied to this prehistoric cesspool." At that, Harry Mudd crossed his arms and stood in the corridor, looking stubborn.

"Mr. Mudd." The Vulcan's tone was emotionless as usual, but a bit flatter than normal, judging by the surprised glance given him by Scotty. Spock went on, "It may turn out that your presence is necessary to solve how to get back to our homes. I am afraid I must insist you accompany us." As Harry Mudd's mouth opened to tell the Vulcan what he could do with his command, a sudden noise made everyone's head abruptly turn to look at the back door of the shop.

Coming from the outside, a muffled banging and a equally-stifled roar of rage showed that a being having an extremely absurd name had just woken up, and it was not in an amiable mood at finding itself in a locked and very smelly metal box. Commander Spock looked again at a worried Harry Mudd, and the Vulcan merely arched an eyebrow.

Finally admitting defeat, a dejected Harry groaned, "Oh, all right! I'll come!" He glowered at what was on the floor waiting for them, and the confidence man's features twisted into a mirthless grin, as he sardonically said, "Of course, there's a little problem about those things…" Harry's voice trailed off, as he smirkingly watched the other two men also stare with puzzlement at the primitive phasers, until they finally realized their predicament.

The weapons created by Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott had been something of a rush order, which meant he'd had to use whatever was at hand. Which included massive car batteries and a whole heap of other junk, all of which caused every one of the archaic stunners to weigh, at a conservative estimate, over a hundred kilos each.

The only person who could even lift one of the weapons was Spock, who now glanced at Scotty's stricken face, as that man hopefully suggested, "If I have a few minutes, I think I can get the weight down…"

From the back alley, there came the sound of tearing metal, as a furious monster managed to start escaping from its prison.

"I'm afraid there's no time, Mr. Scott. We'll just have to rely on one of these," said Spock, leaning down to pick up one of the phasers. The Vulcan stopped short at Harry's polite and exquisitely sarcastic cough, to stand up again and curiously look at where the human was leaning against a shelf with a supremely insolent smile on his face. Mudd's arm then came up to point with a languid finger at where a row of objects were against a wall of the hardware store, as the man came out with three words, spoken with utter derision.

"What about those?"

Commander Spock then had to say something he'd never thought would be mentioned to Harry Mudd.

"Most logical."

A frantic minute's work later, Spock looked cautiously out of the front door of the hardware shop, only half listening to the final instructions Scotty was giving Harry Mudd. "---and whatever else, DON'T fiddle with the controls!"

The civilian looked with a frown at where his own personal stunner rested in its receptacle. Mr. Scott was now pointing at the rear of the weapon where a knob was set in the one-third position. Looking up at the chief engineer, Harry saw a sheepish expression flit over the Scotsman's face, as that man sighed, and confided in a suddenly-thicker accent that reflected his embarrassment. "I had tae over-engineer this, tae make sure it wuurked. The safety interlocks I got frae Mr. Spock's tricorder will adjust for whatever we havetae shoot, producin' the right amount of stun, so we won't kill anything. But, there's a wee bit of danger if you turn this, since it'll increase the power, and, och, that might be bad. So, dinnae fash it!"

At this last admonishment, Scotty left to go to his own phaser, leaving behind a very thoughtful Harry Mudd. Inside his head, two people came to a true meeting of minds. However as much as both Warren Mears and Harcourt Fenton Mudd detested sharing a brain and body, it was the only one they had. So, it didn't matter whatever Scotty said. If it came to that, they'd turn the phaser to full, and blast away, no matter who got hurt.

As if on cue, the back door of the hardware shop bulged outwards at a savage blow, the crash of this resounding throughout the now-empty shop, as a front door was hurriedly shut, and three young men hastily began their trip through the streets of Sunnydale on Halloween night.

In a line abreast, Commander Spock, Chief Engineer Scott, and Harry Mudd all trotted in the middle of the street, warily watching the sides for any attack, as every one of them pushed before themselves their own clattering shopping cart holding their individual phasers.


	5. Chapter 5

Everything was so….so….clean.

Madelaine du Lac stood in the most strange chambre and drew in a deep sniff. There wasn't the slightest hint of merde, either horse produced, or other. Though, there was a constant pressure at the very back of her throat, a feeling she'd had only once before, when as a child she'd sat too close to a lit oil lamp and breathed in the fumes created by the burning of the rock oil.

Trying to ignore this odd feeling, Madelaine drifted over to where a reasonably familiar object in the room stood in its corner, a full-length mirror that had the clearest glass she'd ever seen. Again, as she stared at the foreign face reflected back at her, the young woman abruptly crossed herself and said a quick rosary. Surely Mother Mary and le bon Dieu would forgive her trespasses? At no point in her life did Madelaine ever recall wishing for something like this! Pulled out of her own time, appearing inside another girl's body that did seem rather gaunt….

As she continued her thoughts that would have truly infuriated a missing-in-action Slayer, Madelaine absently opened her mouth and pulled back her lips. Grimacing at the mirror as she examined her teeth, the French girl felt a flicker of jealousy at how white these were. And not a single one missing!

Finally closing her mouth and looking away from the mirror, Madelaine's attention was caught by an open door, causing her to walk over to peer into the smaller room with absolute fascination. If the room she was standing in was clean, the space before her she'd recently spent several minutes inside could only be described as pristine in its fair pureness. A lovely pattern of roses ran along the walls, interrupted only by an even bigger mirror attached on one of the walls! Truly, the householder must be most wealthy!

A frown did wrinkle Madelaine's brow, as she uneasily stared at the oblong container resting on the floor at the end of the room. While its function was apparent, surely her body's former inhabitant could not have used it all that much? After all, everyone knew that overindulgence in bathing was deleterious to one's health and possibly sinful, as well.

As the French girl's attention nervously shifted away from an object of corruption, her face smoothed into a more pleasant expression of actual adoration, as she stared at another object in what had been told to her was a…."bathroom."

Earlier, Madelaine had finally worked up the courage to timidly ask her companions where a chamber pot or an oubliette was in this dwelling or outside it. Both of the other girls had stared at her in absolute horror, and then the pair had looked at each other, before finally uttering simultaneous groans of revulsion. As the French girl had watched in utter incomprehension, both the redhead and the brunette had performed quick gestures at each other with their hands, ending up with one of the girls holding down a flattened palm on her other upheld palm and smirking at the other girl looking with total dismay at her clenched fist resting in her other hand.

The fuming brunette girl had then guided Madelaine upstairs into the unfamiliar chambre and into the smaller room, grumbling under her breath along every step of the way. Once both of them had crowded into the "bathe room", the girl with the strange name of Cordelia had refused to look at Madelaine, instead determinedly staring straight ahead at a wall while stabbing her pointing finger at some kind of seat with a hinged lid and stuttering out instructions as the brunette's face turned the color of a crimson sunset. Moments later, this Cordelia had stalked out of the small room, slamming the door behind her, but not before Madelaine had heard the most odd mutter from the other girl.

"Buffy is going to OWE me for this!"

Several minutes later, there came a furious pounding on the bathroom door, with the voice of Cordelia Chase coming through it at full volume.

"IF YOU DON'T STOP FLUSHING THAT TOILET EVERY TWO SECONDS, I'M GONNA STICK YOUR HEAD IN IT!"

Recalling all this made Madelaine look nervously at the other door leading out of the bedroom and into the rest of the house. She would have been quite content to stay where she felt safe, except that it was possible the others had news of their situation. Reluctantly, throwing back glances at the comfortable furnishings of the other girl's chambre, Madelaine walked to the bedroom door and cautiously opened it to peek out. There was nobody there, so she slipped out to stand in the hallway and then she warily crept down the stairs. As she arrived at the bottom of the stairway, Madelaine heard voices coming from the room on her left.

"Aren't you going to sit down?" This was spoken in a mocking tone that Madelaine recognized at once was that of the girl named Cordelia, who absolutely HAD to be some kind of putain, with her most unseemly apparel and her total lack of deference towards her betters.

"Oh, shut up, Cordy! You know I don't dare, even if I could! Not when I could change back at any second!" Madelaine shivered at hearing this angry voice from the other girl, the redhead, and the Frenchwoman's right hand unconsciously jerked into a gesture against the Evil Eye. Looking down at her hand, Madelaine forced herself to relax this, glad she hadn't done it right in the face of the girl known as "Willow." It was most unwise to directly offend someone who was both a witch and a spirit!

The last had been shockingly demonstrated when Madelaine had seen the other girl unconcernedly walk through walls and other solid objects. As for the first, well, this Willow was a redhead, bien sur….

Nodding to herself, Madelaine suddenly froze, as she waited for the final member of those sheltering in the house from the events of Halloween night to make a comment. The ensuing quiet sent a shiver down the French girl's spine as she quickly glanced over her shoulder, to assure herself that the uncanny man known as Angel hadn't sneaked up on her.

*Ange! Hah!* mentally snorted Madelaine. From the way the man stared at her when he thought she wasn't looking, a mingled expression of loss and hunger flitting over his face, he clearly wasn't feeling the pure attentions of a true guardian spirit. Of all the time she'd spent in this eerie place, it was only in his presence that Madelaine truly missed her crucifix that she'd had around her neck ever since her confirmation.

Despite this, the young girl in the ornate costume finally decided to move from where she'd stopped at the bottom of the stairs, to enter the room with the others. At least, that homme pâle avec la coiffure graisseuse wouldn't bother her if she was in the presence of the other two girls. Which, mon Dieu, was the only reason why she would want to spend any time at all in their company! As Madelaine du Lac swept into the Summers living room, her proud face and carriage was the result of keeping this thought in her mind.

Unfortunately, her appearance wasn't greeted with the usual deference Madelaine was accustomed to, as the others showed the most shocking display of bad manners she had witnessed since, oh, arriving in this dwelling. The brunette in the tattered black clothing that clung most unseemly to her form sprawled in the chaise she was occupying and simply glowered at the blonde in the opulent dress. Madelaine dismissed this Cordelia as having no more idea of proper comportment than a camp follower. The other girl, the redhead, rushed right up to the Frenchwoman and began babbling.

"Buffy is that you did you change back no I didn't either--"

The girl with the odd name of Willow abruptly stopped talking at Madelaine's blank expression directed at her, and sheepishly stepped back to wave her hand through a small table next to her. As the redhead sadly watched as her hand passed intangibly through the piece of furniture, she missed Madelaine's flinch at this and the blonde's own step back. When Willow again looked at Madelaine, she received a cool glance from the girl in the gown, causing the redhead to slump in dejection, commenting, "You're still this, uh, Madelaine? And you can't remember being Buffy Summers, or the Slayer? Which we really need now, 'cause Angel's only one guy--"

"Yeah, yeah, we got that," sardonically said Cordelia. The girl in the torn cat costume started looking really angry now, as she snapped, "It's been hours! What'd Giles do, stop off for tea when he went off to find this Ethan guy? Can't we call him again?"

Shaking her head, Willow informed Cordelia, "Giles doesn't carry a cellphone. The only thing we can do is wait for him to call us when he fixes things--"

"IF! Not when! If he fixes things! For all you know, you might be stuck as a ghost forever! Along with the rest of the town!" Cordelia glared at Willow, who now had a panicked expression on her face, as the Jewish girl finally faced the fact this might not end well. Madelaine edged away from the pair, as they ignored the blonde girl drifting toward the kitchen to leave the two in their uncomfortable silence.

It was only when Madelaine entered the dark kitchen that she realized the man known as Angel hadn't been with the others. A chill came into her bones as she stopped short and frantically looked around.

An icy hand covered her mouth, and a male voice whispered into her left ear, as Madelaine froze in utter terror. "I didn't open that door."

Her eyes flickered towards the end of the kitchen, to see that there was truly an half-open door there, as mentioned by Angel now behind her and holding her in a too-firm grip. As a whimper rose in her throat, about to change into a full scream, Madelaine's ears were assaulted by a uncanny bellow coming from something else.

From the shadows of the kitchen, a horrible creature that was undoubtedly a demon of some kind rushed towards the pair. This man-sized being had scaly and warty green skin, a savage expression of rage and beastly hunger on its face, a wide-open mouth full of fangs ready to tear and devour, and massive arms outstretched with clawed fingers clutching in its eagerness to rend the man and the woman standing there at the other end of the kitchen.

Madelaine was shoved aside, as Angel charged right at the demon. As the girl stumbled back into the kitchen wall, the two combatants collided, their arms wrapping around each other, as they slammed against the kitchen counter, knocking off numerous utensils that fell with a clatter onto the floor. This sound was barely heard over the demon's roars and the man's shouts of anger.

As Madelaine cowered against the wall, she watched with horror as Angel twisted his body to hurl his foe onto its back, and fell onto the demon, desperately holding onto its arms as he looked up from lying on the heaving and twisting body of the creature trying to get loose. Glaring at Madelaine, Angel shouted, "Get out of here!"

The French girl was unable to move, her entire body frozen in fright. Seeing this, Angel's face became even angrier, and then that part of his body did something truly horrific. Distorting and warping into something that was totally inhuman, the face of what had been a man now was a ridged nightmare of pure rage, with evil yellow eyes and a mouth full of fangs that was more than equivalent of the demon he was restraining. In his eagerness to get her moving, Angel the vampire again shouted at Madelaine, "Déplacez-vous chienne stupide!"

In remembering his French, Angel was distracted for just a moment. It was all the time the Irishman's enemy needed. Tearing an arm free, the demon reached out for a weapon, and found the only thing that was at hand. A wooden spoon from the kitchen counter that had broken during its fall to the floor, so that the head of the implement was missing, leaving only a stick with a very sharp point. The demon grabbed this, and in a single thrust, it shoved the wooden shaft deep into Angel's chest. Right into the heart.

An expression of astonishment just started to appear on the vampire's face right before he turned into dust.

A scream from the very bottom of Madelaine's lungs resounded throughout the entire house, as she whirled and ran from the kitchen, not paying at all any attention to her collision with Cordelia who had rushed to stand behind Madelaine in the kitchen entranceway at the beginning of the attack. The brunette was knocked away to trip and fall onto her back against the living room floor, the breath smashed out of her lungs and unable to move at all for a few moments. This kept her from being noticed by the demon who'd gotten off the kitchen floor to chase right after Madelaine.

Willow tried to stop the demon, stepping directly into its path and waving her arms and yelling. Angry growls and a slash of its claws that passed through the girl leaving her unharmed was the only result of this, as the demon didn't even stop in its pursuit, running right through Willow, the living room, and out the front door.

In her panic, Madeline ran straight ahead away from the house, out the front yard and into the street. Sobbing in fear, the girl glanced back and shrieked again at seeing the demon was catching up with her. Desperately trying to run faster, Madelaine managed only a few more steps until her flowing hair was caught in a firm grip and her neck was nearly broken as she was brutally brought to an abrupt halt in her tracks. Stunned, Madelaine felt her body drop to her knees as the monster let go of her hair, as she then fell over on her side, to look up at her death.

The demon stood over the French girl, its face even more bestial in its triumph, as it lifted its arms up to the sky and howled in victory. Looking down at the tear-streaked face of its prey, the monster reached down, its razor-sharp fingernails coming closer to rip into the form of the young woman.

A slim figure came out of nowhere to smash directly into the thick body of the demon, actually forcing it a few steps back. The demon stared with astonishment at the small human standing right before it, wearing a tight-fitting blue shirt, black pants, and black boots. A calm expression on the face of the teenager with really great hair (all sleek and shiny midnight black) only infuriated the monster, who uttered a bellow of rage as it lunged towards its new enemy.

Still lying on the ground, Madelaine could only watch in dread as her rescuer was clutched in the grip of the demon. Her alarm changed in the next instant to sheer astonishment, as the blue-clad man twisted in a most odd way that incredibly flung the demon away and into the air, accomplishing an appreciable hang time, before the monster again crashed into the earth, cutting short its surprised howl.

The man hadn't bothered to watch this, spinning to leap towards Madelaine and landing right at her body, as she looked up to see him lean down with blurring speed to gather her up in his arms and straighten again, to leap again away from the monster, all while shouting at someone, "NOW, Mr. Scott!"

Madelaine had barely time through all this to fling her arms around the neck of the man who was carrying her, to hold on tight, as a blue light the same color of the shirt she was pressing her face against flashed throughout the Sunnydale night. A few seconds later, a calm voice asked, "Are you all right, Ms. Summers?"

The girl, who was certainly not what the other person thought she was, only tightened her arms around her rescuer, buried her face against his chest, and just cried. Finally, her hysteria ended, and she lifted her head away from the very warm body of the young man, absently noticing a strange gold symbol on his shirt, sniffed, and looked up.

A young boy about the same age of the girl whose body she inhabited, looked down at her. Effortlessly holding her in his protecting arms, serene yet mature features that incredibly were greenish-tinted regarded her. Her attention was then drawn to the smooth curve of the teenager's ears that ended in a most elegant point (she would have certainly used the French word 'chic', except that specific description had been around only since the mid-19th century).

After everything she'd been through, Madelaine du Lac could be justly forgiven for her now-blurted question.

"Êtes vous une fée?"

Commander Spock mentally translated the French, and his only immediate reaction to being asked if he was a fairy was an eyebrow that achieved a record elevation.


	6. Chapter 6

Crack!

The sound of the slap carried along the quiet street where the group was walking along, with various reactions now shown by the members of the party passing through the commercial environs of downtown Sunnydale on Halloween night.

Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott glanced over, a flash of distaste passing over the youthful features of the teenager now currently possessed by the personality of the true owner of the starship Enterprise (the captain, fine laddie though he was, just commanded the dear lady). Breathing out an exasperated sigh and continuing to push his shopping cart containing the primitive phaser the Starfleet officer had created, Scotty turned back his attention to warily keeping an eye on his sector, ready for anything that might attack them from the right side of the street.

Madelaine du Lac jerked her head around, her eyes widening in fright, and she crowded closer to the young man in the blue shirt and black pants, as near as she could get to him on his right side without stepping directly in his path and colliding with her protector also pushing his own chariot du marché on the left side of the street.

Commander Spock naturally didn't react the slightest to what had just taken place among two members of their group, not even the most infinitesimal ear twitch. Though, any sf geek would have known the Vulcan was thoroughly cognizant of every single event taking place among them all, and he simply chose not to respond. Except for acknowledging in his mind the human sharing his consciousness that Jonathan had been off by three minutes, seventeen seconds in predicting that event. At the same time, Spock calmly continued his lecture on the workings of his tricorder to the insubstantial entity next to him.

Said sf geek previously mentioned was hanging onto every word of this. Willow Rosenberg, walking on the left side of someone she'd never in all her wildest dreams hoped to actually meet, and occupied in her mood of ecstatic brainiac glee, would have been quite willing for both members of the several-seconds-ago spat to promptly drop dead. Just so they did it quietly and didn't interrupt what Mr. Spock -- MR. SPOCK -- M*R.*S*P*O*C*K* -- was telling her.

Besides, it couldn't have possibly happened to a more deserving, detested, arrogant, loathed, clothes-mad, rich bitch than Cordelia Chase to receive a crude suggestion accompanied by an attempted grope, both from a fictional character appearing in a science fiction television episode that first aired over thirty years ago.

The character himself just smirked, despite how this pained his slapped face, and called after the brunette in the tattered cat costume stalking away, "Your loss, madam."

Pushing his shopping cart carrying his own jury-rigged phaser down the middle of the street, Harry Mudd looked ahead, so that even if anyone had bothered to further watch him, nobody would have seen how his features abruptly contorted into an ugly mask of pure rage. A few seconds later, while Harry was still keeping up with the group, which continued to ignore him, his face suddenly smoothed into a more acceptable expression of worried alarm.

Ordinarily, Harcourt Fenton Mudd was quite content with his disreputable character and unscrupulous behavior, with him cheerfully going through life swindling anybody possessing whatever medium of exchange they owned and leaving behind only lint in their pockets. If they were lucky. He sometimes took the lint and the pockets, too.

However, despite the opinions of every law-enforcement authority of the Federation, Harry Mudd had, well, not morals, but he did have limits. The distinction was clear in his twisty mind: he was a crook, not a criminal. If there was a clear profit in it for him, the man would certainly steal candy from a baby, but he wouldn't kidnap a child.

As for women….well, the universe was quite adequately endowed with those delightful flowers, and while Harry was always ready to share his company with any female in range over the age of consent, a rejection by his target (either vocally, physically, or more often, both) would just be met with an amiable shrug and then with the man going onto a subsequent attempt with the next blossom.

Such a sentiment was clearly not shared by the passenger in Harry's mind. The Federation citizen was becoming very nervous about the extremely disturbing emotions being broadcast by the Warren Mears personality. Rage, hunger, malice, lust, hatred….all of these had been sensed by Harry whenever any of the three girls accompanying them had come into his line of vision, with Warren reacting every time in a most sinister fashion.

Being slapped by this Cordelia had almost been the last straw. Harry had just barely maintained control of their body, otherwise Warren might have done something foolish and deplorable. It was clearly time to divert his mental companion into a calmer temper, and the confidence man from the twenty-third century was fully confident of talking anyone into any course of action. It was true that persuading a separate personality occupying a portion of his brain was something new for Harry, but then, he liked a challenge.

Harry Mudd allowed a serious expression to pass over his face, as he mentally cleared his throat, and sent out a message. *Excuse me, Mr. Mears….*

*WHAT?!*

Maybe a little too much of a challenge.

Harry kept going on anyway, musing to the angry teenager in his head. *Have you considered that it might not be all that good for both of us if those enthusiastic members of Starfleet actually succeed in their task?*

There was no direct reply from Warren. Instead, Harry felt from that personality a mental surge of emotions consisting of suspicion tinged with interest, and the swindler grinned to himself in a very private part of his own mind. He liked interest. He could work with that.

"He's pretty much a waste of oxygen, isnae he, lassie?"

A fuming Cordelia was startled out of her dark mood, as she glanced over where she was walking by the right-hand shopping cart, into the face of the teenage boy younger than herself, who was nodding at where the other teenager she'd just slapped was striding ahead, a thoughtful expression now on Warren Mears' face. Furious at having to acknowledge her treatment by that jerk, plus also that a snot-nosed freshman would even DARE to address the Queen of Sunnydale High without express permission, Cordelia opened her mouth and prepared to pour vitriol over her hapless victim.

*WHAT did he just call me?!* abruptly ran through the brunette girl's mind, causing her mouth to instantly snap shut, as she stared with total bewilderment at the cheerful face of the younger boy. As the teenager in the red shirt and black pants broke off his gaze at Cordelia to alertly glance around, the cheerleader uneasily considered the last few minutes, ever since she and the others had left the Summers house.

There had only been time for rushed introductions between everyone standing in the street, before the guy in the blue shirt (whom Cordelia had vaguely remembered seeing around in school) said in a commanding tone that it was clear it was unsafe for the three girls to stay in the dwelling, so they would have to accompany the male trio. At least until a place of shelter could be found for them; if not, it would be best if the girls stayed under the protection of the Starfleet officers. The teenager with the greenish-tinted skin and the pointed ears had pointedly not included the other male of their trio.

Cordelia had been too distracted by Willow's nerd-girl meltdown in the presence of the blue shirt guy trying to fend off dumb-Buffy clinging to his arm to pay all that much attention to names of people she'd just met, whether their own or those of their new identities. If it actually became important, they could just tell Miss Chase of Chase Industries ($23 million in profits the last fiscal year) their names again.

Perhaps she'd made the teensiest little mistake there. Frantically trying to recall what she'd ignored before, Cordelia momentarily frowned, until she hastily ceased this wrinkle-creating expression, and concentrated. Even if the girl had never bothered to learn anything about a science fiction television show from the dawn of time (the mini-skirt and pre-Madonna era), it was virtually impossible for any American to grow up in the last decades of the twentieth century and not know something about Star Trek.

"You're Mr. Scotland, right?"

The face of the young man next to her flattened for an instant, to be accompanied by a polite rumbling correction that had an edge in its tone. "It's Scott, ma'am. Montgomery Scott. Though….if there could be changes in the mirror universe that had the other Spock, I suppose I might have a different name in this one-- What's that, laddie?"

Cordelia looked on in astonishment as her fellow conversationalist broke off, to tilt his head and look away while speaking to an imaginary person. She blinked, as the teenager brought his mature gaze back to her, to say, "Aye, th' lad says I have my same name here."

"Er -- who says that?"

"Andrew, of course. Fine name for himself, that youngster. D'ye know him? Come out, lad."

Now Cordelia was dumbstruck, as the person in the Starfleet uniform pushing a shopping cart momentarily stumbled, to continue jerkily walking in a manner totally unlike his confident stride a moment ago, and now with a look of absolute panic on his face, as he stared at Cordelia while the boy's youthful features turned pure red, matching his shirt.

The whole situation became even more bizarre, as the teenager's mouth opened in a clear case of someone else's control, to speak in a broad Scots accent, "Well, lad, say hello. It's the polite thing to do."

His face now having total horror on it, the boy hesitantly took off his right hand from pushing the shopping cart and held this out across his body to where Cordelia was walking with him. The brunette girl stared at his shaking hand, until her manners took over for her, reaching out to grasp his hand. This lasted only an instant, as….Andrew? hastily snatched back his hand after the briefest of grips.

Then, the boy shook his head once, as he stared in puzzlement at a bemused Cordelia now seeing the muscles of her companion's face shift under his skin, to show her a more mature gaze. An aimed gaze that was currently narrowed in suspicion at the young woman, as also expressed in a doubtful Scots voice asking, "Were you unkind to that laddie before? He just now basically dove under a rock, and he won't come out."

"I don't remember." At her escort's disbelieving look, Cordelia protested again, "I said, I don't think so!"

In a way, that was the absolute truth. The Sunnydale High cheerleader captain was quite capable of and had indeed carried out insulting, ridiculing, mocking, and otherwise denigrating any other student lower in the pecking order of that higher-education facility, and then walking away while completely forgetting about her victim a few minutes later. It was enough that they and everyone else would remember exactly who ruled the school.

Still, as Cordelia considered the young man at her side once again looking away to check for dangers, she really didn't think she had done that to him. Or whoever was in his head. However you wanted to say it. Allowing herself to actually notice a freshman long enough to rip his sense of self-worth to shreds? Even when Godzilla stepped on Bambi, that radiation-created monster had probably remembered doing it just out of the sheer absurdity of the whole thing.

No, she found Mr. Scott more….interesting.

Cordelia blinked in shock at what she'd just thought, and she shot another glance at the (boy? man?) guy. He was walking with an easy, assured stride and sweeping his head back and forth, alertly watching the right side of the street for any dangers and menaces to the small group on this night. The girl realized that the male at her side was quite confident he could and would protect them all. That made her feel….safe, a mood that had been absent from her for most of this strange Halloween.

She was further stunned by her feelings of security, especially with….with….him! Cordelia felt a flash of temper. She was Cordelia Chase! She was the daughter of the richest man in the entire county! She was the queen of Sunnydale High School! She was….

…..lunch for the monsters that were roaming in the town this Halloween night. Cordelia finally admitted the truth of this, her shoulders slumping slightly as she walked along. The brunette was at ease with her pride and arrogance, but she wasn't stupid. The creatures that had left their lairs tonight to hunt their prey would be most pleased to come across such an appetizing morsel as the young woman. It wasn't like demons would be in any way impressed by a financial list of assets waved in their advancing direction, the paper held up in a trembling hand in a vain hope this would stop fangs and claws from ripping her tender flesh.

Cordelia shivered, and heard a concerned voice from her right side. "Are ye chilled, lassie?"

The girl glanced over at where Mr. Scott was giving her an anxious look, and managed a faint smile of reassurance. "No, I'm okay. It's not far, right?"

The young man in the red shirt shook his head. "Frae what Mr. Spock said, the costume shop's just a few minutes' more walk. Then we'll see what we can see, and lay plans." A decisive nod was made, and the teenager sent Cordelia a sympathetic smile just before he turned his head away to continue at his watch. He didn't see the young woman keeping her wondering gaze on him.

He'd….cared for her, and his look at her tattered cat costume had been a considerate examination of her torn garments, instead of the leer at female flesh now exposed to the elements that should have come from the teenager walking at her side. Her mind spinning, Cordelia finally recognized for once and all that she was in the presence of a mature, confident man at the full height of his powers, and at this exact moment, these strengths and abilities were devoted to keeping them all safe.

An uncomfortable thought suddenly appeared in her head. She'd realized that no monster would care the slightest over how much money she had….and this also applied to Mr. Scott, someone from hundreds of years in the future. A corner of her mouth twitched upwards in very wry humor that it would be kind of like a New Guinea tribeswoman still in the Stone Age thinking her offered colorful bird-of-paradise feathers would impress the uncanny man in his strange clothes and magical tools visiting her tribe's village.

Cordelia glanced at Mr. Scott out of the corner of her eye. Moreover, she had a feeling that even in his….time, dimension, whatever, he wouldn't care about anyone's money. He was a man who was content with what he did, which was….what? The brunette girl frantically tried to recall whatever she could from the television show and the movies, but all she could remember was…..he ran a starship.

The teenage girl frowned, and she struggled in her mind to come up with something today that exactly matched what Mr. Scott did in his job. Her eyes widened, as a memory suddenly appeared from when she'd been a little girl. Just before entering first grade, she'd gone with her parents to a visit to San Francisco, pleasure for her and her mother in shopping and seeing the sights, and business for her father, who'd gone to discuss a military contract with the Navy. Due to the latter, the whole family had been invited to pay a visit to an aircraft carrier then docked in the naval port on San Francisco Bay. During all of their visit to the enormous ship, young Cordelia had been variously bored, fascinated, and a little frightened.

In the massive vessel, she'd watched all the thousands of men and a few women at their jobs, working away and not paying the slightest attention to their visitors (how dare they! The Chases were here!). In the hulking structure of the main hangar deck, filled with noise and strange, hard machines that looked deadly and dangerous, a single man had caught the eye of a spoiled little girl. An imperious piping voice had interrupted the discussion between her father and a man with lots of gold stuff on his shoulders, to demand, "Who's that?"

The entire group of her parents and their escorts through the carrier looked down to see where a six-year-old was pointing at another group fifty feet away, surrounding a stocky man with a weathered face snapping out orders.

Commander Higgins, Public Affairs Office, conscious of his orders to entertain the Chase family, cleared his throat, and looking down the hangar deck at where the engineering party were getting their daily briefing and instructions, he carefully explained to the little girl, "Ma'am, that's Chief Engineer Adamson. He's telling everyone what they're supposed to do today."

"He just tells them? He doesn't do anything?" The beautiful child in her formal dress scowled up at the man telling her this.

The commander blinked, and then he grinned. He'd come up through engineering himself, until a chance at a better career path had caused him to move to his current post, and the naval officer then told a little girl what he truly believed about the ship's officer in charge of all engines and machinery of the USS Enterprise CVN-65. "Miss, if the Chief was cast away on a desert island in just his shorts, in six months, he'd build and sail off in a new ship exactly like this made out of rocks and palm trees. And, he'd have made improvements." At the child's puzzled stare, the man went on, "He can fix and build anything. My dad once told me there are only three types of people in the world: makers, takers, and fakers. That man's a maker."

Another's cleared throat and a look of disapproval from Mr. Chase recalled Commander Higgins back to his task of escorting the civilians. The naval officer then lead the small group off, not paying attention to the little girl with a thoughtful look on her face tagging along.

On the streets of Sunnydale during Halloween, Cordelia glanced over at where a teenager was pushing a shopping cart holding a weapon that wouldn't be invented for nearly a century, and she knew she was again in the presence of a true maker. That information kept her very quiet for the rest of the trek.

"This is the place. Am I correct, Miss Rosenberg?" Spock looked up from his tricorder to see the redheaded girl's agreeing nod.

Of all the group now standing across the street from Ethan's Costume Shop, the young woman in a ghost outfit was the only one that had been at that store who clearly remembered their visit. Staring thoughtfully at the small building holding clothing imbued with Chaos magic, Willow asked, "Is the guy -- Ethan, I mean, if that's his real name, in there?"

Spock frowned at his tricorder, and made several minor adjustments to the controls, only then speaking, "There is severe interference from whatever energy is now being emitted from that place. However….I am reading two male adult humans inside there on their feet, close together, and performing some sort of action."

"What're they doing?" Cordelia managed to be the first to blurt out her worried question.

Commander Spock again made fractional alterations in the controls of his tricorder, and a look of actual alarm now flashed across his face, as he grimly said, "They appear to be in conflict."

* * *

A few minutes later:

Aquaman, standing in the knee-high surf at the shoreline of the beach, vigorously shook his head, spraying water from his cropped hair, and started to take a stride ahead, stopping only at the exasperated call from lower down.

"Sir, I can't go on there yet!" Madison, floating in the water by his side, gave several strokes of her tail to hold her position in the backwash, and lifted her head from the surface of the ocean to glower at the King of the Seven Seas, who had the grace to blush.

"Sorry, Madison. I forgot. Let me give you a hand." At that, Arthur bent down to put his arms around the mermaid and then he lifted her up in his embrace. Her own arms around the man's neck, Madison briskly flapped her lower torso consisting of her golden tail, spraying water even further than Aquaman had managed. Watching all this as small waves broke around his own legs, a founding member of the Justice League bemusedly asked, "Is that going to be enough to have you, er, change?"

Madison peered through her dripping hair directly into Arthur's face, and chuckled, "No, I'll need to be drier, before my legs appear. A few minutes, maybe, if you just hold me, but it'd be faster if I could towel off."

"Right." Aquaman squinted in the night along the deserted beach, and then his gaze shifted to across the area of sand at where a row of small shops, restaurants, and homes lined the boardwalk of Sunnydale Beach. Speaking briskly, as he started to stride forward, Arthur said, "There'll be something in there, probably. Maybe we can find you a place to stay, too."

*Breaking and entering?* An amused voice sounded in Aquaman's mind. *Damn, the Comics Code Authority is gonna come gunning for you.*

*Shut up, Xan--*

A massive burst of pain scorched through the brain of the man holding the mermaid in his arms. Screaming in agony, and ignoring his screams being matched by higher-pitched shrieking, the man sank down to his knees and then slumped forward, barely feeling the torso he was laying on jerking in pain, until he rolled over in his daze to lay against the ground, the beach sand now sticking to the entire right side of his face.

Xander Harris just moaned in anguish for several moments, until his head finally stopped feeling like it was being split in two, with the pain slowly disappearing. Blinking tears away, Xander finally paid attention to whimpering noises coming from next to him, and he dazedly pushed up his right arm against the beach, absently looking at this limb as he lifted himself off the ground. At that instant, the Sunnydale teenager froze in absolute horror.

His right arm was covered in a magnificent golden-scaled sleeve leading down to a tooled wrist-length green glove covering his right hand. As he stared at what looked nothing like the cheap costume he'd gotten at Ethan's Costume Shop, Xander's head snapped up from this at a feminine scream of pure terror.

"XANDER! XANDER! WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ME?!"

Next to him, her body thrashing on the sand, as a young woman on her back frantically shoved away with her hands, scooting backwards on the beach, yet still unable to get away from her firm lower torso flexing and quivering in panic, as her accompanying golden tail slid across the ground, as Harmony Kendall stared with horror at what her legs had changed to tonight, her face still resembling that of Madison the mermaid.

Without thinking, Xander pushed his body across the sand, to take Harmony in his arms, as the girl began flailing at him in hysterics, shouting at her in a voice deeper and pitched unlike what he'd had just a few hours ago. "HARM! Harm! Please stop! Just listen to me! I can--" Xander had seen a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye further up at the beach, and as he glanced up at this, his voice abruptly choked off.

Harmony's attention was finally caught by the body of the man holding her in his arms suddenly tensing in a massive shudder, as his face changed from looking at her in total concern to seeing something behind her and now possessing stark fear. The mermaid twisted her head to look for herself, and wished at once that she hadn't.

At least thirty vampires were advancing in a line across the beach towards them, all in game face and grinning with utter sadism.

Harmony instinctively huddled closer to Xander, turning her face away from the monsters approaching and beginning to bury her head against her boyfriend's shoulder. Now, it was her own turn to freeze, as she emitted a hopeless sob. Xander concernedly looked down into Harmony's face, only to see she was staring at something behind himself.

Twisting his body around to look at the surfline, Xander now felt absolute despair. Just a few minutes ago, he'd wondered why the Scoobies had never considered the possibility of aquatic vampires. It was truly clear at this moment that he'd been really shortsighted. If there were aquatic vampires….there were also aquatic demons.

The vampires who'd escaped below the ocean from Aquaman's attack hadn't just been running away. They'd gone to find their big brothers. Their really, really big brothers.

About the same number of vampires matching those already on the beach were advancing out of the surf line to the pair lying on the ground. Those blood-drinking monsters coming from the ocean were dwarfed both in numbers and in stature by accompanying creatures hoisting themselves from the sea. Ranging from twenty to fifty feet high and often that wide, about sixty fiends utterly hideous and grotesque lurched, crawled, shuffled, and propelled themselves forward, sending waves crashing ahead of their bodies by their sheer bulk. The waves nearly reached the two humans staring at their doom in the form of fangs, talons, claws, tooth-laden tentacles, mandibles, and unnamable limbs all ready to render and tear.

Xander Harris, clutching to himself his girlfriend, softly spoke the only thing that could be said.

"Oh, crap…."


	7. Chapter 7

Rupert Giles bestowed upon Ethan Rayne's skull a classic Liverpool Kiss, the dull 'thuk!' of the vicious head-butt echoing in the costume shop salesroom, with the abrupt agony of this diverting Ethan's savage jab that would have crushed Giles' larynx, to instead glance off the side of the school librarian's throat.

Both of the combatants now reeled apart, groaning and clutching their hurts, but still holding each other's murderous gaze. As one, they both dropped their hands to hold them in half-closed fists ready for the next attack or defense, and both men started to circle in the middle of the room, sliding their feet in the mark of expert brawlers, ready to kick, knee, or stomp. Whatever it took to permanently put down their enemy.

"Getting tired, Ripper?" taunted Ethan. "Back in the old days, that would have meant an instant concussion for me. Now, I think after I've won, all I'll need is a few aspirin to clear up my mild headache."

Giles probably wouldn't have answered that. As noted by his former friend, back then the young Englishman had won his nickname because he preferred the old ultra-violence rather than talking his opponent to death. It was all moot anyway, as at that instant, the front door to the costume shop was kicked open in a thunderous crash.

Even during their lifetimes of witnessing the strangest events, the next few moments were rather bizarre for both Englishmen. Having two teenage boys, one in a blue shirt and the other in a red shirt, stride into the shop, with the first boy holding in his arms with perfect ease despite its evident weight a massive, cumbersome device that had an unmistakable gun barrel-type muzzle aimed with what could only be called worrying expertise at them both, abruptly sobered the older men from their homicidal thoughts about each other.

Splendidly rallying, Ethan turned to Giles, to sardonically ask, "Friends of yours?"

The Watcher just glowered at his former comrade, until a most unusual statement was heard by both, uttered by the young man in the blue shirt.

"Willow said to tell you we are indeed friends of the Scooby Gang."

Everyone in the shop had to then wait for a solid minute until Ethan's fit of howling laughter had ended, with the man himself doubled over in mirth, arms wrapped around his body, as he giggled, "Oh, young man, it was worth the whole night just for that!"

The grave teenager being addressed, whose weapon hadn't budged a centimeter from being pointed at the British pair, calmly answered, "It seems that you are indeed responsible for the events transpiring in this location that brought myself and others to this place. I must confess that your reasons for doing so do not seem to be logical, Mr. Ethan."

"His name's Ethan Rayne!" snarled Giles. "And he didn't have any reason for creating such chaos tonight, except for the sheer fun of it!"

"You really need any other incentive besides that?" Ethan's baffled features showed pure surprise, until his face lowered in a doleful look directed at the man besides him. Sadly shaking his head, the Chaos mage reproved Giles, "Ripper, you've become such a fuddy-duddy. This, from somebody who actually streaked the Queen's garden party!"

The embarrassed Watcher opened his lips to stutter his response to that, abruptly closing his mouth at someone's angry bark, "WHAT did he call you?!"

Both Ethan and Giles now stared at the last of the quartet in the room, the smaller teenager in the red shirt, who had a furious expression on his face, after demanding the answer to that question in a strong Scots accent.

"Ah…." Giles tried to think of any reason for that specific query, until he decided to simply tell the truth. "I was given that nickname in my youth, as a play on my first name of Rupert."

"Plus he laid open a lot of faces with a fistful of sharpened pennies between his fingers, producing enough gore that even old Jack himself would've been impressed," an unasked-for Ethan gleefully contributed.

"I'm no' an admirer of that butcher, or even anybody who thinks it's an honor to share his name, ye glaikit sumph," Scotty coldly informed the Sassenachs, his look of disgust clearly showing the insult was meant for them both.

Both of the Englishmen stared with honest bewilderment at the irate teenager glaring at them. It was the other young man, still holding his weapon on the older men, who broke the short silence with a calm question. "Mr. Giles, as per the telephone call you received from Cordelia Chase, have you made any progress on identifying and reversing the cause of tonight's turmoil?"

His head turning to give Ethan a ferocious look, Giles growled, "He admitted it, but we were in the middle of our discussion when you came in. I still have no idea how to do anything about it, but if you'll allow me to continue…." Giles' last threat trailed off in an angry rumble at the expression of mocking derision now on Ethan's face.

Observing this, Spock looked thoughtful, and said, "Mr. Scott, if you please," as the boy in the blue shirt stepped to one of the shop tables that had earlier been holding Halloween costumes. On this now bare table, the Vulcan placed his stun weapon, all the while keeping it aimed directly at Ethan, who despite himself allowed a flicker of apprehension to appear on his features.

As Spock stepped away from the phaser, Mr. Scott moved to stand in front of the table, his hand reaching out to rest on the weapon trigger. Ethan looked really nervous now, perhaps due to the obvious glint showing in the eye of the Scotsman raised on tales of Homildon Hill, Culloden, and centuries of punch-ups between supporters of Rangers F.C. and Man U.

"Please move away from him, Mr. Giles," politely commanded Spock, reaching for his tricorder in its carrying case at his side.

Looking both wary and puzzled, the Watcher backed up a few steps, and then he stopped, to observe the teenager with the pointed ears holding a small metal and plastic device that the young man was intently scrutinizing. After he touched several pads on the face of the device, the display light shining on the satanic features of the adolescent shifted, with the changing shadows on his face making him appear as a true Prince of Evil, perhaps Lucifer himself, who had heard the truly good news that a few more million souls were now in thrall to that demon.

In a composed tone, Commander Spock informed the room, "Perhaps that statue of Janus directly behind Mr. Rayne may have something to do with tonight's events."

For a second, everyone in the room froze. Then, Scotty, Giles, and Ethan all turned their heads to stare at the seemingly-innocent small bust of a double-headed Roman god, mixed expressions of curiosity, startlement, and apprehension on their faces. Spock was an exception, instead developing the faintest frown on his features, as he began to turn his head to look behind himself.

An unexpected blast of blue energy slammed into the Vulcan's body, making the science officer convulse as azure electricity crackled over all of his form, until the phaser bolt winked out and Commander Spock limply dropped to the floor, falling onto his tricorder as the teenager became totally unconscious.

The others were also affected by the stunning to various degrees, depending on how close they had been to Spock. In a daze, Scotty also fell to the shop floor, landing on his right side, and then rolling over onto his back. He managed to remain conscious, even if his limbs were no longer fully under his control. Desperately straining, the young man in the red shirt turned his head, his eyes widening at seeing their attacker, and the Scotsman bellowed in fury.

"MUDD!"

From where Giles and Ethan had reeled back against other tables in the costume shop, swaying, but still on their feet despite their entire bodies feeling numb from the effects of the phaser stun, the two Englishmen stared in utter bewilderment at the teenage stranger strutting into the shop, an evil smirk on the young man's face.

The new arrival stepped over Spock's comatose body and stopped by the table holding the phaser the Vulcan had placed there. Looking down at Scotty's furious face as the engineering officer struggled to throw off the lack of sensation in his arms and legs, this Mudd person was clearly enjoying how his helpless victim could barely move. The teenager standing over the other adolescent then slid his boot toe under the quivering torso of Scotty, and heaved with his foot, flipping over the body onto its face, with this muffling the sudden outburst of numerous Gaelic expletives.

"SHUT UP!" shouted Mudd, his jovial mood fading into real anger. He sneered at the young man on the floor, "You really thought I'd let you and pointy-ears do what you were planning? Maybe you actually believed you could send us back to our time and place just by flipping a switch? Well, unlike you and your fellow hero, I managed to think of what would happen if you did succeed in changing things back to normal here! We'd be gone! There's no guarantee our personalities would return to our real bodies in the future! Now, you and the Vulcan might really think committing the closest thing to suicide would be worth it, but Harcourt Fenton Mudd is going to live, you idiot, even if I have to spend my remaining years in this pesthole!" Harry finished his rant with a vicious kick into Scotty's ribs.

The victim of this grunted in agony, and a pained young voice that sounded totally unlike Scotty stuttered a name in an American accent, "W--w--warren?"

Mudd smirked, and placed his hand on the phaser resting on the table, as the pair of older men continued watching in complete disbelief all that was taking place. Ignoring them both, the teenager now idly caressing the weapon, boomed out in a gloating tone, "The young Mr. Mears and I have come to an arrangement. I will use my knowledge of future technology, helped with Mr. Spock's tricorder, to make him -- us -- rich and powerful beyond his wildest dreams. Actually, he'll then be able to fulfill ALL of his fantasies. What's it to me if some primitive females don't care for his actions? We'll both have a most enjoyable time, anyway." A cruel look now appeared on the young man's face, as an amoral confidence man and a budding sociopath finally concluded a mutual agreement in a merging of their personalities that would almost certainly lead to blood and pain for uncounted others.

A rasping chuckle came from Ethan Rayne, causing the teenager standing by the futuristic weapon to snap his head over to stare fixedly at the Chaos mage. Ignoring the menacing look on the younger man's face, Ethan chortled, "Isn't it lovely when a lad has an impressive goal in life? Congratulations on your new career, young man. Now, if you'll just excuse me…." Ethan started to casually edge to the side as his voice trailed off, only for him to abruptly stop at a most heart-freezing sound.

Click. Click.

The teenager standing in front of the weapon on the table had turned a dial on this device through two positions, until it was at the furthest right point. Neither of the two Englishmen standing in front of the phaser had any idea of what had been done, but they suspected it wouldn't be good news for them. The wheezing gasp of sheer shock coming from the teenager on the floor of, "Have ye gone daft, ye numpty?! Put that back tae what it was before!" only increased their apprehension. The number of teeth shown to the pair in a mirthless grin by Harry Mudd didn't help, either.

"Spock identified that small statue behind you as having something to do with this all. I want to know exactly how I got here, how you did it, how I can control it, how I can keep others from interfering with it. In short, everything. Or else." This was delivered in a tone of absolute menace by the young man.

Giles and Ethan simultaneously glanced at each other in shared alarm. The Watcher's unease rose to new levels at seeing his former friend's worried look abruptly change to sadistic glee, as Ethan glanced back at the man called Harry Mudd, who had his finger ready on the trigger. A mad smile on his face, Ethan snickered, "Why don't you show us how serious you are? Shoot him." The mage nodded his head at Giles after those last words.

Harry Mudd only looked over at Rupert Giles in mild disgust, and chillingly shrugged, as he said, "He doesn't mean anything to me. You, on the other hand….if you don't give me some kind of reason right now to keep you alive, I'm going to shoot you both!" The look on Harry/Warren's face then was insane enough to actually rock Ethan back on his heels. The startled look on the Chaos mage's features now changed to an actual pout as he reluctantly decided it was best to follow orders.

Grumbling, Ethan carefully turned around, keeping his movements slow, and lifted the Janus statue off from the table where it was resting. Holding it in both hands in front of his chest, the Englishman returned to facing Harry Mudd, only now there was a more confident look on Ethan's face. Speaking calmly, he said, "This is imbued with Chaos magic, that I also put into the costumes I sold in this shop. That caused the wearers of those costumes to change into whatever they were wearing, which is why you came here, from where you were before tonight. To end the spell, all that needs to be done is to destroy this statue, which is quite fragile. Oh, by the way, if you shoot me right now, you'll break the spell and vanish! So, what are you going to do, lad? Mmmmm?"

Ethan's maniac laughter now rang throughout the costume shop, as he gloried in the Mexican standoff.

Every one of those on their feet, and even Mr. Scott on the floor, were immobile as they all considered this new situation. This was changed by an absolutely unforeseen incident that changed everything in the next few instants.

"WARREN!"

A shriek of pure anger came from the intangible figure easily passing through everything in the shop -- the walls, tables, Rupert Giles -- in its furious rush directly towards the teenager behind the phaser. Clad in a pure white sheet with blank features, except for eyeholes, its arms were held out forward at shoulder level, hands and fingers clutching as they prepared to seize their frightened prey. Willow's unthinking charge, caused by her sudden rage at Warren's treacherous acts clearly evident when she'd poked her head into the shop to see why he'd left the girls outside to push his phaser into the wrecked front entrance of the shop and fire into the room, now started a sequence of events that would end in serious consequences.

Mr. Scott, having regained some mobility, lashed out with a foot to kick Warren's ankle --

Ethan Rayne, still holding the Janus statue, took a quick step away from the phaser --

Rupert Giles lunged towards what Ethan was holding, his arms outstretched to knock the bust to the floor --

Willow was now only a few steps away from Warren and coming on strong, still enraged --

An absolutely terrified Warren Mears, now at this instant fully in control of his body, smashed his hand with all his force against the trigger of the phaser, just before Scotty's kick would have landed --

This jury-rigged phaser, the first one created by the engineering officer in the hardware store several hours ago before he had gone on to create better constructed others, had been selected by Mr. Spock for his personal use due to the fact that it was too dangerous for anyone else to employ, as it required the Vulcan's most careful touch with the controls on their lowest setting. Any rough use or handling accompanied by misalignment of the weapon's mechanisms, by mistake or intention, risked the release of massive amounts of energy in a manner possibly deleterious to those persons in the immediate vicinity.

In short, it could easily blow up.

Which was exactly what happened.

An enormous ball of pure blue energy erupted from the suddenly-shattered remains of the phaser, no longer contained or restrained. Most of this energy burst backwards, to engulf and incinerate the teenager standing behind the weapon, killing both Warren Mears and Harry Mudd before both even knew they were dead. The charred corpse still stood upright in front of someone who in another universe had lost her dearest love at the hands of this sociopath. Not that Willow knew this, or even had time to respond to this in her rush, as things were still happened too fast for ordinary humans to react.

Another spike of dangerous blue energy had burst from the front of the destroyed phaser. No one would ever know why this spike moved in its exact course as it did, though it might have had something to do with chaos this night. Regardless, the energy spear shot directly at the bust of Janus in Ethan's hands, striking it precisely on the forehead of the carved piece of stone facing the weapon, and shattering it into innumerable pieces.

Ethan also had no time to react to this, as one specific golf ball-sized piece from the broken bust of Janus had shot straight up at blurring speed, to catch the Englishman under the chin, easily penetrating flesh and bone in its upward course, to emerge in a spray of blood and liquefied brain tissue from the top of Ethan's skull. Again, all this had happened too fast for the Chaos mage to know his life was ended, or to even be amused by his manner of passing.

Things weren't over yet.

Just right before Ethan Rayne died, a second piece of the Janus statue had been blasted away, to unerringly strike Rupert Giles on his right arm. This stone fragment, still containing within itself Chaos magic, was the size and rough shape of an axe blade, and in the manner of that chopping weapon, it tore through the flesh of that limb, amputating it just as easily as any metallic flat head with an edge attached to a wooden handle could have done. Giles was hurled away from his lunge towards Ethan, spinning around and spraying blood throughout the room from his new stump, all too fast for him to understand what had happened, or to even feel pain, before he collapsed to the floor and passed out.

* * *

As blood from an unconscious Englishman pooled onto the costume shop floor, in a land far away, in its most recently acquired human form, a demon called Eyghon screamed in absolute agony in its hotel room, clutching its right arm at the exact place where a fragment of stone permeated with enchantment had just ripped right through a magical tattoo a British teenager had once been stupid enough to acquire, at the same moment his friend, then present at the time of the tattoo being applied and who also had gotten an identical one of his own, had been promptly killed by another piece of the same rock. This demon, who had no idea that right now in another dimension a god of gates, doors, doorways, beginning and endings was laughing his insubstantial ass off, slumped over dead in his chair, exposing for a moment the round hole in the top of his head, just before his body began to dissolve into unidentifiable demonic goo.

* * *

Willow Rosenberg knew nothing of any of this. A still form lying on the porch of a house in suburban Sunnydale suddenly sat up with a top-of-her-lungs shriek. Scrambling to her feet, Willow frantically tore off her ghost costume, throwing this to the floor of the porch, and backed up until she collided with the outer wall of the house. Hugging herself in her sexy clothing and shuddering so hard she could barely keep her feet, Willow sobbed, looking unseeingly in front herself. She didn't know how long she did this, but eventually, her sobs trailed off into gasps, and then deep breathing, until Willow finally regained her wits. Somewhat.

"BUFFY! GILES! MR. SPOCK! SCOTTY!" screamed the redhead girl, spinning around and then realizing she was back at the place where it had all started for her on this Halloween night. Somehow, she'd been sent from the costume shop, where something had happened…..? Willow choked, memories flashing in her head of Warren standing over still forms and holding two other men at bay with his phaser, her running at that bastard, and…..blue light?

Desperate to find out what had happened to her friends, the girl raced off the porch, through the front yard of the house, and into the street, right into the path of a beat-up van that slammed on its brakes in an ear-splitting screech of stressed metal and skidding tire rubber in an effort to avoid colliding with a young woman standing in the middle of the road and waving her arms. The enclosed motor vehicle came to a shuddering stop just a foot from the body of the teenager, who ignored her close call to run around to the passenger side of the car.

Pulling the right-side door open, Willow leapt into the passenger seat, slammed her door shut, and turning to the startled driver, she reached out to grab his 'Dingoes Ate My Baby' t-shirt, yanked him to her, and screamed in his face, "DRIVE TO DOWNTOWN! NOW! NOW! NOW!"

As Willow let go, the guy her age with spiky blue hair fell back, his eyes widening a little, as he turned to face the steering wheel, taking his foot off the brake to stomp on the gas pedal. The van peeled rubber, and shot forward, sending both occupants of the vehicle slamming back in their seats. As the van rushed down the street at well past the speed limit, a fingernail-gnawing Willow heard a polite question in a composed voice from the driver's seat, "Uh, exactly where are we supposed to go downtown?"

Anxiously peering straight ahead, Willow absently muttered, "Second and Broadway, and hurry up!"

The engine of the van howled, as more power was applied, and the young man ignored blasting past a stop sign, to instead glance out of the corner of his eye at the seriously-hot chick with red hair sharing his van. Okay, she was clearly insane, but considering how she was dressed, who cared?

* * *

Cordelia Chase had her own problems. It had all started going wrong a few minutes ago, just after Mr. Spock and Scotty had entered the costume shop. Right after that, without saying a word, Harry Mudd had pushed his own shopping cart containing his phaser towards the shop, ignoring the calls sent after him by Willow and herself. Buffy -- or Madelaine, as she called herself, just looked bewildered and about to burst into tears, as usual. Staring uncertainly at each other, and then worriedly around themselves in the Sunnydale night, the high-school girls had huddled by Scotty's shopping cart.

"What's going on?" hissed Willow. "Did anybody say he was going in there too?" The redhead nodded at where Harry had stopped in front of the kicked-open door, with the teenage boy clearly listening intently to whatever was being said in the shop.

Cordelia snapped, "I don't know! You think I even got near him again after what happened?" The brunette girl glowered at the smartest student in Sunnydale High, who was looking like someone had stolen her answers to the calculus quiz. As Willow opened her mouth to say something, she was interrupted.

Blue light again flashed through the streets of Sunnydale, as Harry Mudd fired a phaser bolt into the costume shop. As all three of the girls gaped in sheer shock at this, they watched the boy then walk into the store in a triumphant strut.

"What….why…." gabbled Willow, her sentiments shared exactly with Cordelia, who was also unable to understand what the hell was going on. Madelaine just pressed closer to the other two girls, at least until Willow started jogging across the street towards the costume shop, causing Queen C to become seriously pissed, as indicated by her screaming after the redhead girl.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Willow called back over her shoulder, still heading for the store, "I'm going in there! You stay out here, and protect Buffy!"

Cordelia was about to blow her top, until she suddenly realized that one, nothing could hurt Willow's ghostly form, and two, Mr. Chase's daughter was the only one who could operate Scotty's phaser if they were attacked by any of the monsters roaming around town tonight. The brunette made a growling sound, as Cordelia realized she was stuck with dumb-Buffy. Glaring at the frightened girl in the ornate gown, the head cheerleader of the town's high school angrily stalked over to the shopping cart and peered at the crude weapon that the possessed teenager had shown her how to operate while they had been walking here. Satisfied she could use it, Cordelia straightened up, almost bumping into Buffy, who had crowded after her. The girl in the ragged cat costume finally lost her temper then, yelling at the French girl, "Will you-"

BOOOMMM!!!

The entire face of the costume shop glowed with a blue light, and then all the front windows blew out, spraying glass almost to where the pair of girls were standing. Well, one of them was standing. The other girl had suddenly dropped to her knees, shrieking in agony, as she clapped her hands to her head, to pull off her dark wig. Buffy Summers then fell forward onto the asphalt of the street, lying prone as she wailed, "ANGEL! ANGEL!" as her body was wracked with heaving sobs.

Cordelia stared in horror at what had happened to Buffy, and then she frantically looked at the costume shop, only for her terror to increase, as the brunette girl saw flames appearing inside the costume shop, easily discernable through the destroyed front windows. Cordelia dropped to Buffy's side and grabbed the blonde's shoulder, yanking her up to scream into her face, "BUFFY! There's a fire in there! We have to do something!"

Buffy barely registered this. All the experience of being a helpless human girl brought out of her own era into a terrifying place and time, in a land where monsters and demons really existed to attack those who were defenseless, had just crashed into her mind in an overpowering rush of memories. Accompanied by this was the abrupt return of the Slayer Spirit, itself a staggering occurrence of sensations and feelings of being more than human, that was well over ten times worse than what had happened to her consciousness when she'd first been Called years ago.

Finally, there was the event that was the most traumatizing of all what had occurred to her this Halloween night: witnessing the end of Angel, her dearly beloved, and knowing she had caused that tragedy. It didn't matter to Buffy at all that her body had been under another's control at the time, and that person had actually been the one to distract Angel during his battle with the demon that had finished with the vampire being staked. The Slayer screamed in anguish, and weeping bitterly, she blindly flailed away at the other girl shaking her and shouting ignored words.

Buffy's careless sweep of her arm just barely connected with Cordelia's side, which meant that instead of caving in her ribs, rupturing her internal organs, and breaking her spine, the brunette was slammed back hard against the street asphalt with serious bruises and the breath smashed out of her. Stunned, Cordelia struggled to draw in air and she managed to stagger to her feet. Looking down in utter rage at the blonde girl sobbing on the street, the young woman in the expensive cat costume whirled around, and lurched towards the shop with flames flickering out of the empty windows.

Stopping at the shop entrance and looking into what seemed the foyer to Hell, Cordelia felt absolute terror in every bit of her whole body, but she took a deep breath, and crouching, she slipped past the shopping cart into a room containing savage heat, blinding smoke, and roaring flames of a fire that was steadily consuming the entire building.

Just a couple of steps inside, Cordelia tripped over a body and fell onto the floor. It was a bit cooler there and with better air, but the girl forgot that as she twisted around and screamed at the sight of the charred husk of a young man lying just a few feet away from her.

"Miss Chase! Miss Chase!"

Cordelia rolled over on the floor and stared across the room, where a few yards away, a teenage boy was huddling against a limp older man lying on his back. Cordelia's eyes darted to where the young man had his right hand pressing a clump of red-stained fabric from a costume against…. The girl just barely kept from vomiting at the sight of Giles' stump where Scotty was trying to staunch the bleeding. Her attention was drawn back by the engineer's shout.

"Lassie, get Spock out of here!" He pointed with his left hand at where the Vulcan was on the floor, still unconscious. "I cannae do it, else this one will bleed out! Please, Miss Chase!"

Cordelia jerkily nodded, coming to her feet and then crouching over after a fit of coughing from bringing her head up into the deadly atmosphere of smoke and hot gases higher up in the room, she scrambled over to the science officer. Bending down and putting her hands under his shoulders to grab him by his arms, the tall girl shuffled backwards, pulling the insensible boy after her along the growing-hot floor, ignoring the small box that was left behind. During all this, Cordelia had no time to wonder why Mr. Scott had been speaking in his native accent and then suddenly sounding like an American boy.

After a terrifying journey to the front door, Cordelia managed to get Spock outside and far enough to what was hopefully a safe place in the middle of the street. She dropped him, to gasp for fresh air, ignoring the blond girl still absorbed in her grief on the other side of the street. Then, Cordelia ran right again for the front entrance of the costume shop.

Spike couldn't believe his luck.

The blonde vampire had been following the group for the last few minutes, his fervent desire to attack the Slayer warring with his caution about getting close to those people using strange weapons of blue light that had easily brought down some of the most powerful demons of Sunnydale. It might have been different if he'd had his gang of minions around him, but Spike had sent them off earlier to search the town for his quarry, only to find her right at this moment having a conniption fit in the middle of a roadway. She was wailing something about the poofter, but William the Bloody didn't give a tinker's damn about all that. What mattered now was everyone else was occupied with the dog's breakfast in that conflagration, leaving Buffy Summers totally unprotected and vulnerable.

Spike acted instantly on his murderous impulses, racing from the alleyway he'd been lurking to where Buffy was lying on the ground. He made it all the way to the young girl before she even reacted, his dive onto her body smashing the breath out of Buffy and giving him time to put her in an unbreakable clutch that rendered the Slayer totally helpless.

"Hey, love, fancy meetin' you here," sadistically chuckled Spike in full game face just a few inches from Buffy's terrified features, her tear-stained cheeks giving him a wonderful idea. Spike stuck out his tongue and bent down to lick the girl's tears off her face, enjoying how this made her shudder, and also the exquisite taste of her grief. Grinning at Buffy, Spike informed her what was going to happen next.

"Well, pet, I'm not a fan of the wham-bam-murder-you-ma'am school, but there's no time to drag this out. Breaks the cockles of me heart, it does, but I'll just have to be satisfied with drainin' you dry. Sláinte, Slayer!" Spike then lunged his upper body toward the girl's throat, about to bury his fangs into Buffy.

Cordelia had missed all this. She'd once again entered the costume shop, to find out it was even more frightening with the increased flames, smoke, and deadly gases. A single breath of this caused her to drop to lie on the floor, coughing fiercely, and then to crawl along it to find her companions. Barely able to see in the drifting smoke almost down to the floor, despite the flames burning around her, Cordelia frantically crept along the floor, until she almost collided with two people.

Scotty had still kept his right hand pressed against Giles' stump, but he'd shifted around to grip the collar of the man's tweed jacket with his left hand, and started shoving with his feet to cause them both to inch towards the front entrance. Also coughing fiercely, the engineering officer managed a weak grin when Cordelia showed up and also grabbed Giles. As they both pulled him along, they were making progress in their escape, until a crashing noise from above drew both of the young peoples' attention.

One of the shop shelves being consumed in the blaze, had finally weakened and collapsed, to come falling down right at the trio, weighty enough for gravity to turn it into a severe danger, even without the shelf still merrily burning.

Without even thinking about it, Cordelia threw her body over Giles just before feeling the wooden debris smash into her head and other parts of her form. The girl was nearly battered unconscious at the blow, even the streak of fiery pain along the side of her head and down her face barely registering. Cordelia's stupor caused her to pay no heed to how Scotty next to her had his eyes widen in horror, with the boy then pulling away the blood-sodden heap of rags in his right hand from Giles' stump, to clap this against the side of Cordelia's face, the sickening smell of scorched flesh and burned hair not making the slightest impression on the girl beginning to pass out.

During her descent into unconsciousness, Cordelia also ignored her and Giles being both urgently dragged out by a sobbing boy, and his words of "Miss Chase! Lassie! Miss Chase, Cordelia, please don't die!"

Spike ignored the trio coming out of the blazing building. He had more serious problems.

His fangs were actually making a dimple in the flesh of Buffy's throat, but they weren't going further in to break the skin, rip into blood vessels, and drink the glorious fluid of the Slayer. At this exact moment, he….could….not….move. Spike's body was totally frozen, every muscle unresponsive, his now-panicking demon mind unable to make his corpse accomplish the slightest action.

Someone else was in control of the body of Spike the vampire, as next demonstrated by the actions of that seriously-alarmed demon. Spike lifted his fangs from Buffy's throat, gently let go of his grip, and ignoring how the girl promptly scrambled back out of his grasp along the ground, the vampire stood up to stand at attention, staring blankly ahead. All the time, the demon that had taken over the body of a young Englishman over a century ago was frantically and uselessly trying to take back control of his form.

Buffy Summers stared up at Spike in total bewilderment. Still lying on her back on the street asphalt, the Slayer gaped at the vampire standing before her with his arms at his side and a slack expression on his face. He was as still as a statue, and the young girl had no idea why.

Scraping sounds coming from further down the street caused Buffy to tear her attention away from Spike and glance at where this distraction was happening. Buffy's astonishment further increased at seeing street manholes being pushed aside from below, and forms coming out from the sewers, to stand still in the street in identical postures as the blonde vampire. The Slayer senses possessed by Buffy informed the girl that the newcomers were also demons, though the game faces of many of these vampires would have been enough to tell her that.

As Buffy shakily sat up, more noises of opening doors and footsteps resounded throughout the street, almost drowning out the roar and crackle of the burning building behind her. Buffy finally got to her feet, gaping around herself, as the entire street began to fill with demons and otherworldly creatures, all of these not paying the slightest attention to the Slayer, but instead walking, crawling, lurching, oozing, and otherwise moving to the middle of the roadway, to at last stand totally motionless there.

In the next instant, a massive wave of pure thought blasted into Buffy's mind, causing her to convulse and barely stay upright on her dainty dancing slippers, with this abruptly conveyed message from an unknown sender ignoring all her uncertainty and indecision over all of this night's events, and giving her a clear and unmistakable command:

*Slayer, SLAY!*

Staring straight ahead, Spike was still distracted from madly trying to get back control of his body at seeing Buffy Summers standing before him shuddering, swaying, and then standing upright again, as the young girl's pretty face turned into a savage mask of pure rage and bloodlust. As the girl leapt right at Spike, to land in front of him, gripping his neck in both hands and pulling with all her Slayer strength to rip his head off his corpse, he who had once been William the Bloody, part of the Scourge of Europe, had time for one last thought before becoming ash in the wind.

*Oh, bug--*


End file.
